


Small Blessings

by itzteegan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Facial Shaving, Fluff, Kissing, Lyrium Withdrawal, Making Out, Shaving, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 20:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20318944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itzteegan/pseuds/itzteegan
Summary: With a life full of extraordinary events, Guinnevere Trevelyan relishes the small normal moments she gets with Cullen, because Maker knows they don't get many.





	Small Blessings

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, all fluff and no smut. What am I doing? I don't know. Next time, I promise.

“Are you sure you don’t mind?”

Chuckling, I began running the razor over the strop to ensure it was sharp enough to do its job. “Of course not. Why would I?”

“W-well, it’s just ...” he began the stutter, rubbing the back of his neck in that adorable, awkward way. Sighing, he finally admitted, “I wouldn’t ask, it’s just … the _shaking_. It’s not so bad that I can’t grip a sword, but delicate work …”

“Can’t have the Commander cutting his own throat while shaving, can we?” I teased.

His cheeks pinked to a lovely rose colour as he admitted, “Yes, that wouldn’t bode very well, would it?”

Turning around as I mixed up the lather, I commented, “And you entrust this endeavour to a mage, do you?”

Cullen fixed me with a stare, completely serious as he insisted, “I entrust it to _you_.”

I smiled as I leaned over and bestowed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “Don’t worry. I won’t cut you, I promise.”

He had approached me earlier that day, asking me in a roundabout way, wondering if I had anything planned for the afternoon. When I told him I did not, I honestly expected him to ask me for a game or three of chess or to spend some time together after lunch. Though, technically, we _were_ spending time together … time as I was giving him a shave. Not that I minded seeing him with a little facial hair, but it was a little longer than it normally was and he was finding it rather irritating. He didn’t normally have any compunction about doing it himself, but with the lyrium withdrawals, sometimes it left his hands shaking so bad he could barely hold a quill, and lately it seemed it hadn’t calmed down enough for him to be comfortable with the task. At least he hadn’t tried to be hardheaded about it, as I well knew he could be about other things, so there was that. Small blessings, which I took, because I didn’t dare let Corypheus steal any little joy of mine.

Bugger that.

Cullen sat perfectly still as I spread the lather on his face, and I wondered if part of it wasn’t due to all that Templar training. Granted, I wasn’t fully familiar with it, but I knew a good deal of it was spent in the Chantry, I assumed straight-backed in the pews, listening to whoever it was drone on about whatever subject. Had to be boring, I figured. Though life in the Circle wasn’t the best and was far from ideal, the subjects I was instructed in was always interesting, always informative in ways I could apply practically to my everyday life. And when I’d passed my Harrowing, I was allowed to apprentice in and study whatever I wished, with little limitation. Well, on paper, that is. In practise, we were far more restricted, due to the Templars’ wariness, and the frustration that mounted over the seemingly senseless impositions meant that when the news trickled in about the Rite of Tranquility and its reversal, and that the Chantry in Kirkwall had exploded … well, it was only a matter of time. And between the amount of our Templars that left to join the Lord Seeker and our Senior Enchanter’s assassination, it was sooner rather than later that we found ourselves leaving the tower that we’d known for most of our lives. While there had been some relief found in forging my own path for once, there was also fear and tension, anxiety over our unknown fate. I had spent those days in a whirlwind of emotions, blissful and happy one moment and cowed in fear the next, the intensity of polar opposite of which made it feel like I had whiplash most of the time.

I shook my head to rid myself of distracting thoughts as I picked up the razor. It wouldn’t do for the Inquisition’s Commander to get nicked whilst being shaved, especially not when I was ruminating on things so far in the past they were irrelevant. While they had been formative in shaping who I was, so much had happened since then, it seemed like decades had passed, the events so long ago that only the barest lingering traces of the strongest of the emotions remained, and even those were easily dismissed. It was much easier now to focus on the present, on the kind ex-Templar who sat before me, stock still, trusting of me to handle something dangerously sharp near his face and neck. “You ready?” I asked, giving him one last chance to wonder what it might be like to have a beard like Blackwall’s.

Apparently, he was not interested in finding out as he nodded, and I positioned myself where I had the best angle before holding the skin taut and slowly gliding the blade downward, deftly separating skin from hair. I paused only to wipe the blade of lather and hair before I returned, making progress all the way down one cheek before I shaved closer to his mouth, and when I eventually reached his lips, I switched to his other side, leaving under his jaw and the other detailing for last. He was, of course, cooperative with whatever position I needed his head to be in, whether I directed him one way or another, up or down, he moved without hesitation when I prompted and held still when told him to. Tilting his head up, I bent over to make sure I cleanly got his jaw and throat, allowing no hair to go astray, not while I was on duty. I left his chin and lips for last, carefully manoeuvring around his scar, not wanting to irritate the tissue around it and yet wanting to do a thorough job of this all the same. This was … this was _nice_. While it was far from how I’d pictured spending the afternoon with Cullen, I liked it, liked the quiet and the calm that we could capture, if only for this moment. And while shaving might have been an odd way of spending time for some couples, it was the touch of normality that Cullen and I _needed_. Couples all over Thedas, they had their normal, they had it nearly every damn day. But we had been through so much, had done so much, was still doing so much for the Inquisition, that these little moments of normal were what we clung to when we were separated, when I was on the road and he was back at Skyhold, nowhere near me and unable to protect me himself. I knew he worried, knew it no matter who I took with me. I saw it in his face, the slightly pained expression he’d have before he steeled his face and nodded at me as I rode out the gate. Yet no matter the pain it brought him to watch me leave, he made a point to do it every time. Like if something did happen to me, he’d regret not having that last look. I know I would have felt the same. And it was those abnormal moments that made something like this all the more precious, all the more cherished, all the more important to indulge in when we had the chance.

When I finally finished, I wiped off the bits of the remaining lather and handed him a little hand mirror so he could see the results for himself while I cleaned the blade and put it to its strop once more so it would retain its sharpness. “I’m not sure I’ve done a better job, myself,” he commented, smoothing his hand over his face and chin.

I chuckled at his assessment. “Flatterer. As if you’d tell the Inquisitor she did a bad job.”

“Fortunately you did just fine, so I don’t have to.”

Rolling my eyes, I took the mirror from him and replaced it with my own hand, feeling the slight tremble than ran this his extremities. A frown creased my forehead as I murmured, “I’m worried.”

“Don’t be. You have enough worries on your plate without mine.”

Reaching up, I smoothed an errant hair of his as I replied, “Yours I’d take any day over Corypheus.” I paused a moment before I asked, “How long has your hands been shaking like this?”

Shrugging, it seemed like he was trying to decide whether or not to be honest with me, but with the way I fixed him with a gaze, he sighed and admitted, “About a month. It was at its worst a couple of weeks ago, but it’s gotten better. I had Cassandra look me over …” he rolled his eyes, “… she _still_ wouldn’t hear of replacing me, whether I could properly hold a sword or not.”

“Well, I trust Cassandra and her judgement. She probably figured it would pass, which it seems it is, yes?”

He nodded. “Not as quickly as I’d like it.”

Chuckling, I asked, “And when does it ever?”

That had the edge of his lips tugging upward in a smile. “It never does.”

Without a second thought, I leaned over and brushed my lips against his, slowly, letting him respond how he wanted. And how he responded was by wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close, to where I was straddling his lap. While his one arm pinned me to him, his other hand wandered up my back, resting at the back of my neck, holding me there as his lips plied mine to open, to let him in, and I did just that. I couldn’t help the whimper that escaped me as our breathing increased, our passion building, and my heart beat so painfully in my chest I thought for sure my ribs would end up bruised after this. He moaned into my mouth and I followed suit, our longing for each other having grown worse, more intense with separation. I swore, had we not been wearing clothes, he would have been inside me that very moment.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to go much further, as just as it seemed we were reaching a sort of frenzied peak, there was a sharp knock at the door, and Leliana’s voice drifted through. “Cullen, did you forget about our meeting? You didn’t meet me at the library.”

Swearing under his breath, Cullen cleared his throat and replied, “Sorry, I’ll be there in a moment.” That seemed to satisfy our spymaster, as we could practically hear her harrumph as she walked away. As I leaned my forehead against his, he commented, “Things really do rarely go our way.”

Chuckling, I couldn’t help but note, “At least you locked the door.”

Cullen groaned and rolled his eyes. “Thank the Maker for small blessings.”


End file.
